Carbon footprint and the Covid-19 endgame

Finally, I found an easy way to offset my carbon footprint: I bought a forest. This is a quite a simplification, compared to the accounting hassle you have with commercial carbon trading for every poo. And it also comes handy in the context of social distancing.

Watching the Covid-19 endgame in Germany now, some of my compatriots are quite a disgrace for humankind after the Enlightenment. Among others, we have a movement called "Querdenker", indicating that the direction of their thoughts is lateral to the mainstream. To me, it appears that their thinking has no direction at all. And also, the length of the thought vector is very small. It must be a tough job for a democratic government to be the intermediate between science and these "citizens." Mostly, it is holding up well, but there are also weird debates on loosening the contact limitations over Christmas etc. They must have found a way to negotiate a cease-fire with the virus during these days.

Luckily, I brought a few Covid-19 Antigen-Tests from Hong Kong. To my surprise, they are not available for general retail in Germany. In Wanchai you can pick them up at the cashout at Watsons, between the chewing gums and the condoms. Made in Korea.

Even my own life is relatively untouched by the restrictions, of course, I do miss a few things also: the museums, the library and even our Anne Sophie Mutter concert in Frankfurt Alte Oper has been cancelled. I hope this year does not damage the cultural landscape permanently. But I assume until mid next year, things will pick up again and we can assess the damage.

The first snow was falling a few days ago. Eddie is a spring dog and has never seen this. But of course, even he is not a sled dog; he knows Iditarod and the great race in Alaska where dogs and mushers raced to deliver serum to an isolated settlement with a diphtheria outbreak. I told him. I wish our American friends would have kept a bit of this spirit, instead of what we have to observe today. When people don’t work together, luckily, we can always count on our dogs.

I am not clear yet which model to apply for assessing the CO2 absorbtion capacity of these trees. I only found numbers for pines, but not oaks, which have the seasonality in dropping leaves in winter and other differences in parameters.

Eddie following ths call of the wild in Taunus.

My longest summer since 1976

It is the end of August and I am thinking what to pack for Tilburg, where I am going to spend a month at the University. It is that time of the year, and I am looking forward to it. I have a good memory of what I packed up for last September, and it included a jacket and some wollen pullovers. Over the last 4 years, it has been this time in Tilburg, in which I witnessed the beginning of autumn.

But this year, it appears all differently. Today, in Frankfurt (Main), the forecast is a maximum temperature 33°C. That's more than 10°C above the long term average maximum temperature in August. In terms of rainfall during the core vegetation period, we have not been that dry since over 50 years, Just a few days ago the government decided to compensate partially losses in agriculture. It is for sure, the prices for many basic food items will rise soon. On top of that, there are response measures taken by the EU in response to the agressive US protectionism. This includes some food categories. I am generally not in favour of having long supply chains for food, and for sure many US products are of inferior quality anyways. But no doubt, it will add pressure on food prices. 

Today, I went to the Niddapark, behind the house. That's my running trail, from spring time. Also spring this year was warmer than average: both April and May about plus 3°C. But it was still a healthy landscape. Now, the grass is yellow, trees show severe signs of drought stress, and my plan to get some wild Sambucus to make a syrup and jam, ended with looking at the dried berries. Also for yesterday night's picknick at the Main river bank, it was not easy to find a green spot of grass to sit on. Luckily some gardener of an office block decided not to care about the municipal request to cease watering decorative plants, and there was a patch. These are the joys of a financial industry which does not care. Actually, nobody does. I remember, when I studied Geophysics in the late 80s, there were already numerical models showing the direction and the energetic effects of composition changes of the atmosphere were available - even the full complexity was not really understood. Desertification, water scarcity, loss of arable land and it's effects on food supply, living conditions and even resulting migration were already back then quite seriously researched and discussed. I remember very well, a project with Münchner Rückversicherung, doing number crunching to adjust their loss models for future natural disasters. That's why I am a bit puzzled why people are surprised now.

Now I am hoping for an "Indian Summer", which we call "Goldener Herbst". I would not be too surprised though, that while the sun's Zenit moves further South and the Westerly winds kick in at such temperature deltas over the North Atlantic, there will be a bit of wind ahead and winter won't come easy. It was a long summer. The only memory I have of such a year, was the summer drought of 1976. I was just aged 10 back then, and time was endless anyway. Now, this is special. 

Dried up Sambucus spoiled my effort to make myself a seasonal jam.